Author

Creative Commons License

Date of Award

Spring 2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Department of Political Science

Advisor(s)

Kerry F. Crawford

John W. Hulsey

Tara K. Parsons

Abstract

The end of the Cold War brought many changes to the international system, including a rise in intrastate armed conflict and violence against civilians. Consequently, the international community performed increasingly complex and multidimensional peace support operations, and peacebuilding advanced onto the international agenda during the 1990s. Despite the increased attention on peacebuilding in recent decades, most operations have been relatively unsuccessful, and local and international actors continue to struggle with how to implement effective policies to rebuild post-conflict states. The purpose of this research paper is to examine how the international community contributes to post-conflict peacebuilding efforts and to better understand when the international community has been most successful at building peace through qualitative case studies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Cambodia. I determine that there is not a clear model of how to build sustainable peace, but that local ownership and local legitimacy during the peacebuilding process are key factors that affect a country’s trajectory after conflict.

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